The 25 Most Watched Netflix Series in the First Half of 2025, According to Netflix

Twice a year, Netflix opens its books and lets us take a look at what the many millions of Netflix subscribers all over the world have been watching for the past six months. The streamer sends out a big ol' spreadsheet, called What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report, listing viewing numbers for a ton of shows on Netflix — more than 7,500 of them, in fact. It's always a fun time for us at TV Guide, because it's rare for any streamer or network to release this sort of data. Historically we've had to rely on Nielsen ratings — which aren't ever exact and are more like educated guesses — to judge a show's popularity, but this is theoretically way better. Well, sort of; we are trusting a company's word over transparent data, after all.

Netflix releases two metrics for What We Watched: total hours viewed and "views." The stat that matters for us is views. In the context of this data from Netflix, the number of views refers to the total number of hours viewed for a season of TV divided by its total run time. It's not a tally of the number of people who watched a show, however. If, hypothetically, Netflix released a show and everyone only watched half of it before giving up, the total viewers would be twice the number of views, for example. But it's still a rough estimate of who watched what. 

Without viewer numbers, we don't have much of a sense of whether viewers actually tended to make it to the end of any of these shows — release the completion rate files, Netflix! — and that means this info doesn't quite paint the full picture. The data we have here is still illuminating, but is only useful in a broad sense. Even so, we're still able to get a pretty good sense of how popular the top Netflix shows are relative to each other using this data this data.

With 2025 already adding some of Netflix's biggest seasons of TV ever, expect to see some big numbers on this list. 

Views: 31.4 million

It's not too difficult to see the hook with La Palma, a Norwegian limited series about a volcanic eruption and resulting tsunami in the Canary Islands. People have always been drawn to epic disaster stories, and La Palma was able to capitalize on that tendency to the tune of 31.4 million views. That performance is extra impressive when you realize this series came out in late 2024 — this is the only non-Squid Game season of TV on this list that also made the top 25 last time (it was No. 6 for July-December 2024).

Views: 32.6 million

Being a region that's both very cold and very dark for much of the year has made Scandinavia a prolific source of moody, slow-burn noir stories. Sweden's The Åre Murders, based on the series of mystery novels by Swedish author Viveca Sten, is a particularly compelling example of the genre and a major hit, pulling in 32.6 million views.

Views: 33.3 million

This semi-silly detective story from Shondaland about a murder in the White House managed to pull very good numbers despite being released a week after the juggernaut that was Adolescence. But that still wasn't enough, apparently, because Netflix canceled The Residence even though it pulled in 33 million views.

Views: 33.5 million

A woman and her son work as hired assassins in this Spanish limited series, but things start to go wrong when the emotionally-impaired son develops a serious crush on one of their targets. The Gardener was Netflix's top Spanish-language series for this period with 33.5 million views.

Views: 33.8 million

In Denmark, a woman stumbles down one hell of a rabbit hole when she decides to look into the disappearance of her neighbor's au pair. That's right, Secrets We Keep is another Scandinavian thriller that Netflix users watched in droves, with the limited series garnering 33.8 million views in just six weeks. 

Views: 34.1 million

Even while The Pitt was pulling in all the headlines at the beginning of the year over on Max, Netflix had folks falling for the much lighter Korean hospital drama Trauma Code, about a brilliant but quirky combat surgeon being put in charge of the emergency department of a university hospital. The sharply written Trauma Code earned 34.1 million views since it dropped in January. 

Views: 34.8 million

This heartfelt Korean drama series features parallel narratives about a woman in the 1950s and her granddaughter in present day, and When Life Gives You Tangerines pulls off that very literary premise so effectively that it earned near-universal acclaims from critics and regular viewers alike. Not to mention 34.8 million views on Netflix. 

Views: 35.3 million

The numbers for the second season of this spin-off of Jenny Han's To All The Boys I've Loved Before trilogy were just slightly down from the first season, when you account for the fact that Season 2 had two fewer episodes. That's a pretty rare level of consistency for Netflix or any streamer, but it's a testament to how committed the fans are to this romantic comedy franchise.

36.5 million views

The final season of the saga of serial murderer Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and his ill-fated attempts to find love wasn't quite as big as Season 4 was, but tons of people still showed up to see Joe get his final comeuppance. When you consider that You started out as a Lifetime original series that averaged fewer than a million viewers an episode in Season 1, those 36.5 million views are still pretty stellar.

Views: 36.6 million

Osama bin Laden become one of the most infamous men on Earth after orchestrating the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, and this painstaking documentary series takes us through the story of the U.S.A.'s hunt for bin Laden over the subsequent decade. Clearly, our collective fascination with one of the biggest villains of our time hasn't waned at all since his death in 2011, judging by the 36.6 million views this docuseries pulled.

Views: 39.3 million

A German family moves into a 50-year-old home that was allegedly the first ever smart house, and they discover it comes with a retrofuturistic robot maid that might also be the first true AI being, since it spends more time trying to turn the members of the family against each other than it does cleaning. (Plus, it has a pretty robust backstory, too.) That throwback twist on what is otherwise a very modern topic provided a compelling enough hook to pull nearly 40 million views.

Views: 39.4 million

Tina Fey's dramedy series, about a group of friends who experience some major life changes over the course of a year, might lean more toward the drama side than you'd expect with folks like Fey, Steve Carell, and Will Forte starring. But that didn't seem to be any sort of problem for audiences at home with The Four Seasons pulling 39.4 million views.

Views: 41.3 million

Kate Hudson stars as Isla Gordan, a former party girl who is suddenly put in charge of the family business: running the storied Los Angeles professional basketball team. The comedy was co-created by Mindy Kaling, meaning Isla's love triangle was just as important as running the triangle offense, which resulted in 41.3 million views.

42.0 million views

Three seasons of a single show in the top 12 is unimaginable, but that just proves once again how ridiculously popular the Korean thriller Squid Game is. With Season 3 bringing the story to an end in June 2025, it's clear that a lot of folks rewatched the series from the beginning or started it up for the first time as the end approached — Season 1 pulled more views in the first half of this year than it did in all of 2024. 

Views: 46.5 million

Peter Berg directed this history drama about the Utah War, a messy clash between early Mormons and agents of the U.S. government that took place before the Civil War. It's not a time period or place that gets much play on TV or at the movies, which was probably a big factor in how American Primeval was able to pull in 46.5 million views in the first half of the year.

Views: 48.1 million

This multi-genre melodrama about a teen girl named Ginny (Antonia Gentry) and her emotionally immature single mother Georgia (Brianne Howey) who had her when she was only 15 years old tends to be very hit-or-miss with critics. But it remains a juggernaut with viewers, as it pulled 48.1 million views even though Season 3 dropped in June, just a few weeks before the end of this list's polling period. The only other season of TV on this list released in June is Squid Game Season 3.

Views: 53.2 million

While these are still blockbuster numbers for the popular thriller series from The Shield creator Shawn Ryan, they're a massive drop-off from Season 1, which was the top series on Netflix in the first half of 2023. Though Netflix only provided an "hours watched" stat for that period, our math says the first season of The Night Agent pulled in about 100 million views in its first three months, or about double Season 2's numbers.

Views: 53.3 million

A young woman named Devon (Meghann Fahy) tries to intervene after she discovers that her little sister (Milly Alcock) is apparently enthralled with a billionaire's wife (Julianne Moore) and is living a cult-ish life — but naturally, as these things go, nothing is as it seems, and Devon's sister may not be the same person she remembers. With a premise that compelling and a storyline that goes to some really unusual places, it's not too tough to figure out how Sirens pulled in 53.3 million views.

Views: 53.4 million

It's no revelation that Ms. Rachel is extremely popular — Netflix is cheaper than a babysitter — but it's extra impressive that Netflix was able to pull numbers like this by simply re-cutting some of her existing YouTube videos into proper TV episodes. Netflix is selling people something they can get for free, and folks have taken them up on their offer in droves.

Views: 56.1 million

Considering how much attention the Gabby Petito case drew when it actually happened in 2021, it would have been surprising if this exhaustive Netflix documentary series wasn't a major hit. Even so, 56.1 million views is a lot, and this series was Netflix's top doc of the first half of the year.

Views: 58.0 million

A decade after her fiance left her abruptly, Detective Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar) suddenly finds him on a dating app and then discovers some things that indicate he might have been involved with the death of her father. And that's the start of the juicy thriller series from hitmaker Harlan Coben that captured the hearts of so many Netflix users, to the tune of 58 million views. A year ago, another Coben adaptation, Fool Me Once, was the most-viewed show with 107.5 million views.

Views: 61.3 million

Robert De Niro plays a former US president — who is somehow broadly respected across party lines (imagine!) — tasked with investigating a massive, 9/11-esque cyberattack that left thousands of Americans dead. Considering how obnoxious the current political situation is in the U.S.A. in 2025, it's not hard to see the appeal of a centrist fantasy like this, especially with a cast this stacked. 

Views: 71.5 million

It might seem a little disappointing on its face that the final season of Squid Game only came in third, but the truth is that these numbers are actually amazing because Season 3 was released on June 27, just days before this list's cutoff period. That's right, it only took Squid Game Season 3 four days to lap almost every other Netflix show on the list. That's a sign of a true juggernaut, and we can expect to see Season 3 at or near the top of the Netflix charts at the end of the year, too. 

Views: 117.3 million

While it may seem weird that last year's Squid Game season came in ahead of the new one, keep in mind that Season 2 dropped just five days before the end of 2024, meaning most of its views came during this polling period. (On the previous list, it tallied an impressive 86.5 million views in just six days.) Just so you can appreciate how absurd these numbers actually are: Squid Game Season 2 would have crushed all the competition during any previous polling period, but it came in nearly 30 million views behind the leader in this one. In another sign of how important international series are to Netflix, five of the 25 spots on this list were taken by Korean dramas, and five more were taken by other foreign language shows.

Views: 144.8 million

This acclaimed limited series, written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham (who also stars), about a 13-year-old boy (Owen Cooper) accused of murdering a girl from school, dominated the first half of the year, pulling in far more views than anything else we've ever seen on these charts. Even so, it's likely that Squid Game Season 2 would have challenged or beaten it had it been released at the beginning of January instead of the end of December, thus keeping the majority of its views in one six-month period. But it's still pretty amazing that a small-scale personal drama like this could compete at all with an established blockbuster like Squid Game. Originally billed as a limited series, there are now discussions being had about a second season following its multiple Emmy nominations.

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